GameControllerWakelock: Use dbus to inhibit screensaver

[infirit]

This actually works for me on KDE. I'll test XFCE later.

[infirit]

Joy, Xfce's screensaver doesn't implement org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver

[sonarcloud]

Kudos, SonarCloud Quality Gate passed!   

0 Bugs
0 Vulnerabilities
0 Security Hotspots
2 Code Smells

No Coverage information
0.0% Duplication

[infirit]

But luckily it does use the same arguments and function names. Looked at Gnome in a VM and it also implements org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver. Any other relevant desktops I need to check?

[cschramm]

I'm not sure if that's a proper way. At least it's compatibility hell. There's org.xfce.ScreenSaver, org.mate.ScreenSaver, org.cinnamon.ScreenSaver, com.deepin.ScreenSaver, ... and other lockers do not have such an interface at all.

[infirit]

If they expose org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver I don't have to specifically handle them. xdg-screensaver doesn't work for me on plasma and I doubt it still work on gnome. I'll have a look at the others and see what they put on dbus.

Inhibit from GtkApplication does absolutely nothing for me.

[cschramm]

If they expose org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver I don't have to specifically handle them.

They don't. The names I mentioned are both the bus and interface names. Object paths differ as well. I think I saw Inhibit methods on all of those interfaces.

xdg-screensaver doesn't work for me on plasma and I doubt it still work on gnome.

You mean the implementation that we currently have in place? Shoot. I thought we're only talking about simplifying things and extending to Wayland, not fixing. 😅

xdg-screensaver does support KDE, though. It actually uses the same interface as you do here for KDE 4 🤔 and targets the Gnome, MATE, and Cinnamon equivalents as well as other handlers.

Inhibit from GtkApplication does absolutely nothing for me.

Awesome... Could be the same reason as for xdg-screensaver suspend or the system needs to implement some handler. 🤷

[infirit]

If they expose org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver I don't have to specifically handle them.

They don't. The names I mentioned are both the bus and interface names. Object paths differ as well. I think I saw Inhibit methods on all of those interfaces.

xdg-screensaver

You mean the implementation that we currently have in place? Shoot. I thought we're only talking about simplifying things and extending to Wayland, not fixing. sweat_smile

Yup, I just tested this on the fresh debian 11 vm with xfce4, it's not working. Screen blanks after the timeout of 1 minute that I set.

xdg-screensaver does support KDE, though. It actually uses the same interface as you do here for KDE 4 thinking and targets the Gnome, MATE, and Cinnamon equivalents as well as other handlers.

If I monitor the destination with gdbus monitor -e -d org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver and call xdg-screensaver suspend wid nothing shows up.

Inhibit from GtkApplication does absolutely nothing for me.

Awesome... Could be the same reason as for xdg-screensaver suspend or the system needs to implement some handler. shrug

I don't know. I'll test the hacky script on the debian 11 vm and see if it actually works.

edit: The gtk application inhibit script also does nothing in the debian 11 xfce vm

[infirit]

I'm really tempted to just open a PR that removes it. If someone want to resurrect it with a method that works on various desktops they can open a PR.

[cschramm]

I still don't get why it doesn't. If you look at https://cgit.freedesktop.org/xdg/xdg-utils/tree/scripts/xdg-screensaver.in, you see that it should do exactly what you're doing here in its screensaver_freedesktop function. If your change works but xdg-screensaver does not, either we fail to call it correctly or its broken on your system. Could it be that it simply does not get KDE_SESSION_VERSION so that it tries its KDE 3 handling?

[infirit]

I got a clue $ gdbus call --session -d org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver -o /org/freedesktop/ScreenSaver --method org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver.Inhibit "test" "test" also doesn't work while in blueman it does. It looks like the calling process has to remain running for the Inhibit to persist. xdg-screensaver for sure doesn't. it does so idk

edit: also, it's not just plasma, it fails just as much on xfce4 on a default debian 11install

[infirit]

It doesn't support xfc4's screensaver, wip https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/xdg-utils/-/merge_requests/38

Ah, and I was right about the process needing to be running, here is why it doesn't work on plasma https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/xdg-utils/-/issues/114 (only 5 years old).

All these are old af so I don't think we should rely on it anymore. I rather just read XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP as I doubt we'll see any fixes from the xdg folks anytime soon.

[cschramm]

Oh wow, now that makes a lot of sense... 😒

So, ideally we'd have a library that we can use from within our process to make the KDE Inhibit calls work properly and with Xfce support and probably a lot more.

I don't want to keep you from building that monster, but I'm not sure if this plugin is such an important feature. To be honest I don't fully understand the use case at all. A screensaver / locker should not jump in during gaming sessions anyway, at least due to regular input, no?

[infirit]

A screensaver / locker should not jump in during gaming sessions anyway, at least due to regular input, no?

Controller and joysticks are not considered regular input and won't reset the timer.

I don't want to keep you from building that monster, but I'm not sure if this plugin is such an important feature.

Nope, now that I start to think about it'll never end. So my suggestion is to drop the plugin for now. And I'll update #1896 restoring the plugin and if it ever starts working it can be merged rebased and merged.

I really thought, cool, standard freedesktop interface, this should be simple 😭 .

[cschramm]

Thanks für the explanation. 👍 I thought controllers usually do show up as input devices.

I'm fine with the removal, just want to add: If I'm not mistaken, the current implementation does not work with KDE 4's screensaver and Xfce's but it does seem to work for others, including MATE's, Cinnamon's, xscreensaver, xautolock, and anything that respects the X screensaver options set with xset.

[sonarcloud]

Quality Gate passed

Issues
2 New issues
0 Accepted issues

Measures
0 Security Hotspots
No data about Coverage
0.0% Duplication on New Code

See analysis details on SonarCloud